Balance
by dudidudidam
Summary: She just wanted to understand.


**Title:** Balance

**Fandom:** Mutant X

**Pairing: **Brennan/Emma

**Rating: **PG

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Notes:** this piece took place in the first season.

**Summary:** She just wanted to understand.

* * *

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She never felt afraid.

She thought there was nothing in this world that could ever scare her again, because all her life she had been living in the streets and she had seen many terrible things happen. She thought she had seen the worst, and thus nothing would be able to scare her again.

But she was wrong. She knew she was wrong all along.

* * *

He always felt afraid, he told her.

He said he was afraid of many things, that any little thing sometimes scared him. All his life he had been living in the streets, and he had seen many terrible things happen again and again; but still he felt scared when something happened because it always, _always_ happened so quickly and unexpectedly in such an unpredictable way it would be impossible to guess how things would turn out. Death was no longer a stranger to him.

But it was a lie. She knew it was a lie all along.

* * *

Brennan sat on the bottom of the stairs, an iPod held loosely in his left hand, headphones securely around his head, eyes closed.

Emma came down the stairs and saw him. She didn't expect him to be there, even if she wasn't really surprised. She slowly went down the stairs step by step, oh-so-carefully so as not to disturb him, and sat on his level in the far right side—carefully facing the other way. She just sat there and let the silence stretch between them.

Without looking at him, she lightly touched his right hand that draped casually in his side.

Just as lightly, he pulled his hand casually before walking away from her.

She stared at his retreating back and didn't stop him from leaving. But her lips silently mouthed one word:

_Brennan_.

He never looked back.

* * *

"You're doing it again," Shalimar said.

Emma glanced at her. "What?"

"You've got that concentrated look on your face that you always have every time you're trying to read the mind of someone you're not supposed to." Shalimar told her, shrugging. "Are you trying to penetrate Brennan's mind again?" she added after a moment.

Emma stared at her.

"He's the only one among us who can feel it when you try to read him." She said, shaking her head, a half-smirk taunting one corner of her mouth. "...or so according to Adam."

She shook her head. "Such a hasty conclusion. If what Adam said is true, don't you think it would only be logical if I try to read anybody _except _Brennan? Surely if I did want to invade someone's privacy, I wouldn't want to be caught?"

Shalimar only grinned at him, a gleam in her cheshire-cat expression. "As a feline, my instinct demands me to always find a new challenge, do you know that? Who's to say you're not the same?" she tilted her head slightly to the side, as if trying to look at her better, before leaning forward and saying in a decidedly much lower voice, "you _wish _to be found out."

Emma's breath caught in her throat. She tried to speak, but the words died before they even reached her tongue.

And Shalimar, damn her, sensing Emma's inability to express her emotion, only grinned wider, a smug look on her face.

"I _knew_ it."

Without wasting another second, Emma turned to leave, the sound of Shalimar's laughter following her all the way.

* * *

She caught him alone in the control room, Jesse nowhere in sight. For a moment too long, she hesitated. Tried to get back out, but at that precise moment, Brennan glanced at the entrance and saw her.

And didn't look away.

She swallowed through a sudden lump in her throat. Took careful steps forward.

He watched her all the way.

"Hey." She felt awkward. And knew she must look it too. "Any news?"

He tilted his head. "In general? Always. Regarding new mutants? No."

"Just the usual, then." She linked her hands behind her back. Looked down at the floor. Looked back up. Found Brennan watching her intently. Studiously. Like he's waiting. For something.

She stared back at him.

"You're never a sister to me." Brennan said.

She blinked.

"Adam told us to start thinking of each other as a team-a family, of sort. But I just. I'm afraid I can't."

"Okay." She said, not knowing what to say.

He watched her again. And then, "As long as we got that sorted." He said, shrugging. And then he turned back to the monitor in front of him, fingers flying over the keyboard in fast succession.

It should, in any way, be the end of the conversation. But from the unreleased tension on the set of his shoulders, it was clearly not. Like he was holding himself back. Like he was waiting, still.

"Anything I can help you with?" she asked.

The typing stopped. He looked back at her. Something unusual in the depth of his eyes.

She felt caught, suddenly. Like a kid with a hand down the cookie jar. Even without knowing why.

But whatever it was, Brennan must have seen it, since all he did was sigh and say, "not at the moment, no."

So she turned around and let herself out of the room.

She tried not to think of how much Brennan's tone sounded like a defeat.

* * *

"Are you alright?" Jesse asks, as Emma tries to block his kick, only to have him swing a punch right at her face, which she managed to avoid by throwing herself back.

"Nothing I couldn't handle." She said, stepping to the right, swinging fist in an uppercut. But Jesse managed to block her just in time; she swung her other hand, only to have it caught in his instead. She raised her knee and aims for his solar plexus, but, again, he stepped back just in time.

She took a step back, regaining back her stance. They both were breathing hard; which was an improvement, considering she barely made him sweat last time.

"Take five?" Jesse offered.

"Sure."

As she drank from her water bottle, she tried to regulate her breathing, tried to make her heartbeat slow. There used to be moments, when she was too excited, that her powers got out of control, making her be inside way too many people at once – which was painful, and definitely not one she would like to repeat.

"So, in the chance I was misunderstood just now," Jesse said, "are you alright?"

She paused. "Why?"

"Well. It's true your reflex is improving; but even as you hit a target each time, it feels like your mind's not in it." Jesse said. "Something on your mind?"

She looked at him. And then concentrated, and released her power. She felt his worry, his slight confusion, his desire to help. She pushed deeper; there was the ever-present affection he felt for Shalimar, the loyalty he felt for Adam, the camaraderie he felt for Brennan.

She blinked. Looked at him, but Jesse's expression stayed the same. No recognition in his eyes; he didn't noticed she had just invaded his mind.

Something coiled on the pit of her stomach; something that felt strangely like. Like disappointment.

Damn Shalimar for putting it in her head.

"Yes." Emma said. "But it's nothing I can't handle." And left it at that.

* * *

"Can you tell," Emma said, "when I try to invade your thoughts?"

Adam looked at her. An indulgent smile in his lips. "No. Almost all the powers that have something to do with manipulating brainwaves are undetectable. In that the subject would feel the effect, but would not be aware of the process itself."

"Then why," she said again, "does Brennan could? Tell it, I mean. When I used my powers on him."

"Elementals are…" Adam tilted his head to the side, "…unique. Especially Brennan's power. He uses the electrons and ions from his body, from his surrounding,, and channels it into external energy. I suppose that's why he could detect it when you tried to read him; your power targets the brainwaves, while Brennan's power enables him to control the electrons used to transmit brainwaves."

"Oh." Emma said. "Is there any way for me to bypass it?" when Adam raised an eyebrow at her, she hastily added, "just in case we meet somebody with Brennan's power, of course."

"Of course." Adam said with a knowing smile.

Whoops.

* * *

Brennan was sitting on the stairs, a book held open in his hand. Just like last time, Emma sat beside him, on the opposite end of the step.

Again, she glanced down at his other hand, draped carelessly on step's surface.

"Can I –" oh god, she felt like she was twelve all over again. "Can I touch your hand?"

He looked at her. She felt her cheeks suddenly getting warmed. "Forget it, I don't even know what I'm thinking—"

"Sure." He said. There was a small smile on his face – not indulgent so much as curious.

So she did. Touch his hand, that was. Tentative, at first. Like testing territory. And then she covered his hand with hers, her fingers filling the spaces between his fingers.

"So." She cleared her throat. "Not a sister, huh?"

"Not even for a second." Brennan snorted.

"What, then?" she asked. She didn't look at him. Couldn't look at him. Her heart beat faster and faster inside her chest.

He was still smiling at her, but there was an edge to it now, like wariness. Like something unsure – which was absurd, because this was _Brennan_. Who always looked so impossibly confident in every situation.

"You tell me." He said, soft.

"I," Emma said, and stopped.

She remembered Ashley, and the way she had felt when she realized the instant connection Ashley and Brennan had because they got the same elemental powers. The way she had projected her thought into Shalimar's, making the feline mutant felt protective and warned Ashley off Brennan. The way she felt so scared when she realized Ashley had absorbed Brennan into herself. The way she felt even more scared when she saw Brennan laying on the Double Helix floor, _unmoving_.

She used to never felt afraid; she had seen _everything_. But Brennan was—Brennan was.

Something she wasn't used to.

After that first time he helped her, despite knowing she had tried to manipulate him into it, she just. She couldn't. She just didn't-

"I just," she tried again, "I just don't wanna see you away."

Brennan kept looking at her.

"Your power, it's. I can't bypass it. And I want—I just want you to. To know. To understand. But I can never get it done." she turned her head to the side, where Brennan wouldn't be able to see the expression on her face.

There was a small _thud_ sound, like a thick book being closed. Then she felt Brennan draw his hand from hers. She closed her eyes, fully expecting to see him walking away – again – in a second.

Except he didn't.

Instead, she felt a hand on her cheek, gently turning her face away; startled, she opened her eyes, only to see him crouched right in front of her, his hands on either side of her face.

"Languages are invented for a reason, you know." Brennan said. "We normal people tend to use words to convey our thoughts to others. Now, I admit this method is a bit old and not as fancy as relaying messages from brain to brain like those emphatic powers you have, but I heard it's still pretty damn effective."

Brennan was smiling.

Emma laughed.

"Let's try again?"

"Okay." Emma said. Then, "Will you let me into your thoughts?"

A corner of Brennan's mouth turned upwards, making his dimple show. "Oh I don't know, would that be in literal sense, or its figurative counterpart?"

She tried to cover her face with her hands, but with Brennan's hands still on her face, it was kind of impossible. "You would never let this go, would you?"

"Of course not." He scoffed. "I'm vindictive like that. I've been told it's one of my finest points." He was still smiling.

She groaned aloud instead. "You've been lied to, trust me."

"Your face is red, though." He sounded gleefully smug about it.

"Your face is _weird_."

Brennan raised an eyebrow at her. "Seriously? That's the best you can do?"

"Oh shut up." But she was smiling.

She brought a hand up, covering one of Brennan's with hers.

He didn't pull away.

"I've been waiting a long time." Brennan said. "A little more wouldn't make a difference."

_You're never a sister to me._

_Oh,_ Emma thought. _Oh._

She could feel the calloused pads on his fingers on her face; could feel the heat radiating off of his body; could feel the surge of electricity under his skin.

This wasn't her imagination.

She felt so happy her heart might burst any second, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

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* * *

AN: Please tell me what you think?


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